"…The brilliance of the market economy (Capitalism) is found in small innovations made to polish and enhance existing products and services. Invention is a wonderful thing. But we should not pretend that it is invention that has made us rich."

"We have higher living standards than our ancestors because of the little things. We ought to be more aware of the continuous, slow, and imperceptible creative destruction of the market economy, the refiners who are always imperceptibly bettering our frozen pizzas, our bookshelves, our pencils, and our crayons."

"Israel Kirzner finds that discovery, or the unforeseen way to create wealth, is the essence of capitalism. The American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Novak finds that the human mind is the treasure and foundation of capitalism. He makes an effort to use as root the Latin word caput, or head. Discovery, innovation, creativity are the essence of capitalism while the private ownership of the means of production provides its environment but not its ends. “The distinctive, defining difference of the capitalist economy is enterprise: the habit of employing human wit to invent new goods and services, and to discover new and better ways to bring them to the broadest possible public,” says Novak."